2+ Year Member

I need some advice. I am wondering if I am aiming too high for verbal. Right now, I am taking Kaplan and have been getting 8s and 9s (in verbal). I want to know if it is possible to get a 11 or 12 on the actual MCAT with only a month to go? I just bought the EK books but according to them, it will take me about a week just to get through one test! And i have 11 tests to go through! What should i do? Or should i just start aiming little lower?
Thanks for all your help.

2+ Year Member

I need some advice. I am wondering if I am aiming too high for verbal. Right now, I am taking Kaplan and have been getting 8s and 9s (in verbal). I want to know if it is possible to get a 11 or 12 on the actual MCAT with only a month to go? I just bought the EK books but according to them, it will take me about a week just to get through one test! And i have 11 tests to go through! What should i do? Or should i just start aiming little lower?
Thanks for all your help.

2+ Year Member

ok, let me rephrase...if i worked hard, could i expect to get a 11 or 12 from an 8/9 with only one month left? and....any suggestions as to how to work on the EK method especially since thre is only one month left?

10+ Year Member

I need some advice. I am wondering if I am aiming too high for verbal. Right now, I am taking Kaplan and have been getting 8s and 9s (in verbal). I want to know if it is possible to get a 11 or 12 on the actual MCAT with only a month to go? I just bought the EK books but according to them, it will take me about a week just to get through one test! And i have 11 tests to go through! What should i do? Or should i just start aiming little lower?
Thanks for all your help.

Click to expand...

First, I would take an EK exam or two as a diagnostic. Kaplan exams typically are not good predictiors of your progress in verbal. They fluctuate in difficulty and they are not representative of the actual MCAT.

An 11 or 12 is definitely possible. You don't have to spend an entire week on each exam. I got in the habit of doing one EK exam every Saturday and taking about 30 minutes on Sunday going over. I would focus on science during the week, but I would try to do a few (2-3) passages each night. I ended up doing about 6 of the EK 101 exams under full-length timed conditions, while splitting up the other 5 into 2-3 passage chunks (but still timed myself).

Yeah, but where'd the lighter fluid come from?

Stop hovering to collapse...Click to collapse...Hover to expand...Click to expand...

2+ Year Member

thanks for the tip. When you spent 30 minutes on sunday did you spend that on each passage or in total? and what part did you do..write down the main idea or go over the questions?

Click to expand...

Hi there. I remember reading from the Examkrackers's forum that Jordon (the founder) said that spending 30 minutes on each passage was a typo. The poster who brought this to Jordon's attention said that s/he was using 30 minutes for 3 passages. Jordon did not disagree, so I assumed that 30 minutes per 3 passages would be about right. Hope this helps.

10+ Year Member

thanks for the tip. When you spent 30 minutes on sunday did you spend that on each passage or in total? and what part did you do..write down the main idea or go over the questions?

Click to expand...

30 minutes per test. I went over the questions and the answer explanations. I focused on why the answers I chose were right...or why they were wrong. This helped me get a "feel" about right and wrong answers looked like.

Yeah, but where'd the lighter fluid come from?

Stop hovering to collapse...Click to collapse...Hover to expand...Click to expand...

2+ Year Member

Hi there. I remember reading from the Examkrackers's forum that Jordon (the founder) said that spending 30 minutes on each passage was a typo. The poster who brought this to Jordon's attention said that s/he was using 30 minutes for 3 passages. Jordon did not disagree, so I assumed that 30 minutes per 3 passages would be about right. Hope this helps.

Click to expand...

well, that makes life a lot easier..still alot of time..but easier. Thanks

2+ Year Member

30 minutes per test. I went over the questions and the answer explanations. I focused on why the answers I chose were right...or why they were wrong. This helped me get a "feel" about right and wrong answers looked like.

Click to expand...

I am wondering how soon you saw results..will it take me all four weeks to improve one or two points?

10+ Year Member

30 minutes per test. I went over the questions and the answer explanations. I focused on why the answers I chose were right...or why they were wrong. This helped me get a "feel" about right and wrong answers looked like.

Click to expand...

Haha, when I go over my wrong answers I still come up with an argument for why my answer was the right answer but you can't argue with the scores; unfortunately that's verbal for ya

5+ Year Member

I need some advice. I am wondering if I am aiming too high for verbal. Right now, I am taking Kaplan and have been getting 8s and 9s (in verbal). I want to know if it is possible to get a 11 or 12 on the actual MCAT with only a month to go? I just bought the EK books but according to them, it will take me about a week just to get through one test! And i have 11 tests to go through! What should i do? Or should i just start aiming little lower?
Thanks for all your help.

Click to expand...

Not sure why you are saying that it will take one week per test?

I started the EK book two weeks ago, and I do 3 a week, Tues/Thurs/Sat.

I will finish them in the next two weeks, at which time I will do start doing the same thing, only with full length practice exams.

Just gotta plow through, you know? It gets easier the more you do it.

I started the summer studying around 4 hours a day, and right now I'm doing 8. The pressure is kicking in too, with 5 weeks left, that it'll probably go up to 10 hours a day.

Well, in the verbal book it says to do the test, then wait a day and come back to it to write the main idea, and then wait another day, and then come back and retry questions...do you do that? how do you go over your test? how long does it take you to go over the test?

5+ Year Member

Well, in the verbal book it says to do the test, then wait a day and come back to it to write the main idea, and then wait another day, and then come back and retry questions...do you do that? how do you go over your test? how long does it take you to go over the test?

Click to expand...

I don't like waiting to correct anything that I do. I correct my tests immediately after I take them, which takes me approximately 60 minutes. I only bother to read answer choices carefully if A) I got the problem wrong or B) It was a question that I felt was ambiguous. Otherwise, I will only glance over the explanations on questions that I got right and that I felt confident on in the first place.

So it takes about 2.5 hours to do the whole thing and correct it. Not too bad right?

And I really think you should do at least two a week, because the more practice you get for this section, the better.

Just carefully read WHY you got something wrong. Very very very important to know why you are getting things wrong.

Good luck! Let me know if you need anymore help. I'm currently at a 10/11, hoping to get consistent 12's by the real thing.

2+ Year Member

I don't like waiting to correct anything that I do. I correct my tests immediately after I take them, which takes me approximately 60 minutes. I only bother to read answer choices carefully if A) I got the problem wrong or B) It was a question that I felt was ambiguous. Otherwise, I will only glance over the explanations on questions that I got right and that I felt confident on in the first place.

So it takes about 2.5 hours to do the whole thing and correct it. Not too bad right?

And I really think you should do at least two a week, because the more practice you get for this section, the better.

Just carefully read WHY you got something wrong. Very very very important to know why you are getting things wrong.

Good luck! Let me know if you need anymore help. I'm currently at a 10/11, hoping to get consistent 12's by the real thing.

Click to expand...

I see...so you dont really follow the EK method of going back to write down the main idea, then looking just at the questions and such.? just take it and then correct it as kaplan suggests? Do you underline and circle stuff?

5+ Year Member

I see...so you dont really follow the EK method of going back to write down the main idea, then looking just at the questions and such.? just take it and then correct it as kaplan suggests? Do you underline and circle stuff?

Click to expand...

I don't do the main idea and stuff. Basically, if it's not something I would conciously do WHILE taking the exam, then I don't do it afterwards either.

I circle KEY words, which follows the technique TPR gives. It makes you focus on changes of tone (But, except, yet, nonetheless, however...). Beyond that, I try to notice extremes (Never, Always, etc...) because those are often reversed to trick you in the answer choices.

Before I started the EK 11 tests, I did about 80 passages worth of TPR verbal. For those, I went through them VERY SLOWLY, probably 25 minutes a passage. The purpose was to train myself to be able to locate all the key words very reliably. After I could do that slowly, that's when I started to time myself and speed things up.

5+ Year Member

I need some advice. I am wondering if I am aiming too high for verbal. Right now, I am taking Kaplan and have been getting 8s and 9s (in verbal). I want to know if it is possible to get a 11 or 12 on the actual MCAT with only a month to go? I just bought the EK books but according to them, it will take me about a week just to get through one test! And i have 11 tests to go through! What should i do? Or should i just start aiming little lower?
Thanks for all your help.

Click to expand...

mcat verbal is crapshooting, unless you are quite good to begin with.

you could be getting 8-9 on practice and it is possible to go upto 12 or 13. Converse of that is also possible.

just relax and continue praticing. As pasteur stated "Chance favors only the prepared mind."

About Us

We’ve been on the Internet for over 20 years doing just one thing: providing career information for free or at cost. We do this because we believe that the health education process is too expensive and too competitive.

We believe that all students deserve the same access to high quality information. We believe that providing high quality career advice and information ensures that everyone, regardless of income or privilege, has a chance to achieve their dream of being a doctor.

SDN is published by CRG, a nonprofit educational organization. We’re dedicated to our mission to help you.